1.1 Scope of the paper and additional resources
1.2 Microscopy development and progress in biology and medicine
1.3 The increasing importance of early diagnosis and disease prevention
 

2. Foundations of confocal microscopy

2.1 Optical principles of the confocal microscope
2.2  Types of confocal microscopes
2.2.1  Tandem scanning Nipkow disk based confocal microscope
2.2.2  One-sided Nipkow disk confocal microscope
2.2.3  Scanning slit confocal microscope
2.2.4  Laser scanning confocal microscope
2.3  Physical limitations of confocal microscopes
 

3. Evolution of biomicroscopy of the eye

3.1 The development of the ophthalmoscope
3.2 The development of the slit lamp
3.3 The development of the specular microscope
3.4 The development of the clinical confocal microscope
3.5 Practical requirements for a clinical confocal microscope
 

4. Practical techniques of clinical confocal microscopy

4.1 Technical setup of the confocal microscope
4.2 Technique of biomicroscopy with the confocal microscope
4.3 Patient data archiving and retrieval
4.4 Dissemination, documentation, publication of microscopic findings
 

5. Clinical examination of the cornea with the confocal microscope

5.1 The normal cornea
5.2 Investigation of the cornea in some selected conditions
5.3 The cornea with known pathologies
5.4 The post surgical cornea
5.5 Confocal microscopy in eye banking
 

6. Consequences of corneal confocal microscopy

6.1 Generate more morphometric data for better definition of normal cornea
6.2 Detect early changes before clinical disease or side effect occur
 

7. New optical imaging techniques to measure structure and function in the eye

7.1 Optical coherence tomography to measure thickness
7.2 Optical redox fluorescence studies of cellular function
7.3 Three-dimensional visualization of the eye
7.4 Multi-photon excitation microscopy and spectroscopy of ocular tissue
 

8. Summary and conclusions
 

9. Acknowledgments
 

10. References